You’re almost ready to send your teen off to college.

You bought the dorm room decor and the brand new laptop.

But there’s one more thing you need.

But before your 18+ year old heads out the door, ensure you have the legal documents to protect them. Accidents and illnesses happen to everyone, including young adults, and you want to be able to speak to healthcare providers, keep informed and help make decisions for your teen once they leave home.

Here’s what you need to get signed when your teen turns 18:

Health Care Proxy

(also referred to as Medical Power of Attorney or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care)

This authorizes you to make medical decisions on your teen’s behalf, giving you access to their medical records and the ability to converse with their medical healthcare providers. By signing a healthcare proxy, your teen is appointing you to act on their behalf in making medical decisions in case they cannot make those decisions for themselves. When your children turn 18, you no longer automatically have the authority to make healthcare decisions for them. And this is true even if your health insurance still covers them and you are paying the bill.

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HIPAA

(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) authorization

God forbid you get a call one day from your teen’s college friend saying that he or she is at the hospital, you’re going to immediately want to call the hospital and find out what is wrong. Before they will even talk to you they’re going to ask you for a HIPAA authorization.

This is a more narrow document in that it permits healthcare providers to disclose your teen’s healthcare information to you or anyone your teen specifies.

This document alone will often suffice to get information from the healthcare institution treating your child. If they prefer, in a HIPAA authorization, young adults can stipulate that they don’t want to disclose information about sex, drugs, or mental treatment.

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Durable Power of Attorney

(Durable POA)

Yes, they will call and ask you to make deposits but this document also enables you to make financial decisions on the student’s behalf. The POA can provide that power vests in you immediately after signing the document or only if your child becomes incapacitated.

The POA enables you to, among other things, sign tax returns, access bank accounts, pay bills, make changes to your child’s financial aid package, or speak to the financial aid office to figure out tuition problems.

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FERPA

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act

Speaking of tuition, even though you may be paying for their education, the FERPA law says you can no longer access your child’s grades once they turn 18. That’s right, you can call the registrar and ask to see your 18-year-old’s transcript, and they will not share it with you even though you’re signing the tuition checks. A FERPA release signed by your student will allow them to release that information to you.

You should obtain and prepare these documents beforehand because it may take time to get everything in order, including notarization if required by your state. Once kids take off for school, it may be harder to get them to focus on signing documents and locating a notary public. As parents, we always hope we won’t need these forms, but it’s always better to be prepared if you do.

So I’ve created this college prep bundle, which includes all 4 documents described. They’ll come to you in an email and you’ll only need to print them, fill in the pertinent information and have your teen sign them in front of a witness or notary depending on your state laws. I’ll even send a short video with instructions on completing them.